Why is CD drive IDE Slave??

[SuperiorRobot]

Title says it all, my CD drive is coming up in BIOS as the slave, and it wont boot up my linux disc, says its an invalid system disc, are these things related? I have nothing else on IDE, my HDD is SATA.
Ive got the Gigabyte D3sl or whatever its called, you know what one im talking about ;]] Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[SuperiorRobot]

also i have it on the far end of the IDE cable, as in, not on the middle connector, though it wont reach if i tried ;(

 

[SuperiorRobot]

ok moving the cd drive and putting it on the middle part of the cable worked--horrible IDE placement on the mobo! still good tho

 

[4745454b]

I'm guessing this was a new CD drive that you bought. If thats the case, it probably came jumpered as a slave. (they probably thought you already had a CD drive, and prejumpered it for you as a slave/second optical drive.) Because you moved it to the slave position on the IDE cable and it now works is the give away clue. If you want, put it back where it was, move it to the end of the IDE cable, and jumper it as a master. It should work.

 

[SuperiorRobot]

theres no jumper on it, though i suppose jumperless is possibly the slave configuration

 

[4745454b]

For a second I thought you were trying to tell me there was no place to move the jumper around, as there was no jumper block. (Impossible for IDE.) From what I remember, if there is no jumper installed, then it is a slave. Find a jumper (don't worry about size, there are only two sizes...) and make it master if you need it back where it was. If not, don't F with it seeing as its working. I only posted so that you'd know whats going on.

 

[evongugg]

Also, the IDE ribbon cable connection has to be on the end of the cable.

 

[pat]

the jumper bypass the cable location for master/slave if set as master or slave. Cable Select position of the jumper allow cable position to define the master/slave.